


the worst of starts, the mercy part

by abandonedquiche (chlorinetrifluoride)



Series: Under(grad)tale [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Humantale, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Past Child Abuse, Past Suicide Attempt, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Substance Abuse, light charasriel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 08:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11802723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlorinetrifluoride/pseuds/abandonedquiche
Summary: You're Sans, it's the summer time, and you're still walking around in slippers, a hoodie, and cargo shorts. You're a doctoral candidate working in your father's lab at Mount Ebott University. You have never particularly been renowned for being the most responsible person on Earth, or in several other galaxies. However, then, something happens, something that shakes your group to its core. You're the one who has to try to put everything and everyone back together. You haven't been responsible since you were an undergraduate, and that was nearly ten years ago. You figure now's a good time as any to start.--Your name is Chara, you failed to make the biggest mistake of your life, and it's time to rebuild.





	1. the faithful and the low

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to "for dead men, deadly wine". All aboard the angst train. I decided to write a story explaining how Sans and Chara became good friends, because they clearly are, by the time "and the piano has been drinking" takes place.  
> I've borrowed both the fic and chapter titles from Placebo's ["Twenty Years"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EipGZpAUBws)  
> Finally, and seriously? **Do Mind the Warnings**
> 
> I promise I'll post a brief but fairly amusing one-shot I've written for this series later on, y'know, in order to bring balance to the force.

_**June 201X - Sans Gaster** _

You and Asriel sit across from each other, picking at the food you got from the cafeteria of Mount Ebott University Medical Center. Visiting hours start in Ward 3, one of the adult psychiatric wards, in an hour. You got an order of fries and doused them in ketchup. It’s not Grillby’s, but it’ll do under the circumstances. Asriel got himself a salad, and a chocolate croissant for Chara.

“So, um, how are you doing, Sans?” Asriel asks.

You’ve never been one for small talk.

“I think you’d know pretty well, Asriel. We see each other in lab every day,” you reply. You think for a minute, then decide to turn the big guy’s question on him. “What about you? How are you doing?”

“Well, golly.” Asriel considers the question. “I’m fine, all things considered.”

You raise an eyebrow. You think of the note Chara left in their chem locker, the locker you broke into on a hunch, and the note, written in red ink, that began with, _“When you read this, I will probably be dead…”_

“What if you’re not?” you ask. “You don’t have to be. You and me, well, we’ve seen some pretty heavy shit, if you get right down to it. Shit nobody should ever see, unless they’re into horror movies. But it’s different seeing it for real.”

That doesn’t quite do justice to the state you found Chara, and their room in. You in particular, because while Asriel was more concerned with bundling them up in something clean and getting them to the medical center, you were concerned with scouring their room until you found some indication of what they took. Nobody bleeds that way without downing some kind of substance that induces coagulopathy.

And what if the substance had an antidote? What if Chara could still be saved? (Although you didn’t think so, not if they’d managed to lose so much blood. They’d go into hypovolemic shock and die on the table.)

Nevertheless, if you found what they’d taken, you’d be able to tell the doctors, and maybe they could administer the antidote, if one existed and would work at this point.

As luck would have it, somehow Chara managed to stumble upon something that could be undone, even in their advanced condition. And the antidote? Laughably simple, once you found the brodifacoum. Phytonadione. Vitamin K1.

And you found the rat poison, it just took you a few minutes of going through their trash. You had never been more thrilled to see two containers of rat poison in a bloodstained single in your life.

You like to think that you’re over it. A few extra sessions with your therapist here and there, and you’re mostly back to normal.

But Asriel isn’t. You’ve seen it from the way he’ll stop in the middle of gathering data. Here is the picture of someone deep in thought. Or someone who’s dissociating. From the way he goes completely unresponsive when he does, you’d say it’s the second thing.

“I guess,” Asriel says, taking a sip from his cup of tea. “What’s this about?”

You’ve never been one to mince words.

“Get a therapist. You look like you could use one,” you say.

Asriel looks unconvinced. “I don’t know if I’d have time to go, given Chara and their condition.”

“Even if you intend to make visiting hours every day from now until they get discharged, you can give up an hour or three a week to see someone and talk about what happened,” you counter. “Look at it this way. You can’t help them if you’re hurting. I don’t even think they’d want you to.”

“I don’t even know how I would go about setting up such a thing.”

You give him the number for the outpatient clinic, writing it down on one of your napkins. You’ve memorized it over the years.

“Call this number, and ask to make an intake appointment. It’s pretty straightforward.”


	2. concentrate on more than meets the eye

_**June 201X - Sans Gaster** _

You decide to talk to Chara on an afternoon where Asriel can’t make afternoon visiting hours. You’ve been wanting to talk to them for a while, ever since their condition got declared stable. You wanted to talk to them even more when they got transferred to psych, because that meant their physical condition was stable enough that now the doctors wanted to focus on the underlying mental issues they had.

So the second your watch says 2:00, officially signaling the beginning of visiting hours, you’re at the door of Ward 3, waiting for the orderlies to let you in.

Chara’s slightly less happy to see you when they realize that Asriel isn’t on your heels.

“Where’s Asriel?” they ask.

“Had some shit to take care of. But it’s okay. I’m here to keep you company.”

Chara wrinkles their nose.

“You don’t look or sound pleased with me, Sans,” they say. “If you’re here to yell at me about wha--”

“I don’t yell,” you inform them. “I don’t have to.”

You sit down in front of them, and take the box of Mallomars out of your bag. You pass it over to them.

“First off, it’s Friday, and you’re off CO*, so I brought you these. They’re a bitch to get in June, but I have my connections. Make ‘em last, ‘cause I only got like three boxes, and I got no idea how long you’re gonna be here.”

“At least another two weeks,” Chara says, somewhat annoyed.

“Yeah, well, you kind of fucked up with this one, kiddo. If they wanted to keep you the whole summer, would they really be unjustified?”

Chara admits that the staff would not be at all unjustifed, aside from the fact that they’ve been doing well on the unit and playing nice with others and all that jazz.

“Yeah, but is it an act ‘cause you wanna get out, or are you genuinely trying to get better?” you ask.

“I doubt that there will ever be a better for people like me,” they reply. “However, I don’t think inconveniencing the staff would make my stay any more pleasant.”

You sigh. You remember being there. Trapped in the melancholy. Unconvinced that anything could change, because nothing had changed, and you’d tried medication and everything else for years.

“Whaddaya wanna do when you get discharged?” you ask them, abruptly.

They think for a few moments.

“I, um, I’m not sure,” they confess. “I’ll figure it out when I get there.”

“If you stick to that plan, there’s a good chance you’ll end up back in here. That’s the best case scenario. Worst case scenario…” Here, your eyes go dark. “You'll backslide, you'll try a stunt like this again, and then you _won't_ come back.”

Chara recoils. Maybe you shouldn’t have gone overboard there. Ah, yes, Sans, you are reknowned for your good ideas.

“I’m not trying to say that to scare you,” you continue. “I’m saying it ‘cause, you really gotta give this some thought. What are you living for? Who are you living for? What’s gonna get you outta bed every day? What’s gonna keep you from trying this shit again?”

“I’m afraid to die,” Chara says slowly. “Now I am, anyway. So I don’t think I’ll try anything again.”

“That’s a good place to start,” you say. “A sense of self-preservation. It’ll keep you alive, but what exactly do you have to _live_ for? Fear is only going to get you so far.”

“I have friends. Quite a few of them. I have Asriel. I have you, unfortunately,” they say. You give them the thumbs up. “And I have the lab. My major. All the things I still want to do.”

You nod.

“Alright, that’s even better. But I want you to think about what you’re going to do when you get out of here, because you will get discharged at some point, and you should have a general idea of what comes next.”

Chara says something flippant like, “Stop assigning me homework when I’m not even your student anymore.”

Then, they answer.

“Take summer classes, I guess. If I actually get out in less than three weeks, I can probably still register for the second session,” they say.

“Why the urge to stay on campus?” you ask. “I thought you’d want to put as much space between yourself and this school as possible.

“I can’t go home to my parents. I actually _cannot._  If I have to go home, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

They look sincerely afraid as they tell you this.

You have no idea what the fuck Chara’s parents did to them, but you kind of want to get their address and give them a piece of your mind. But they’ve had a few parents. How do you figure out which ones to punch in the face.

You’d ask them for names and addresses, but they don’t like talking about their parents. So you decide to do one better.

“If something happens, and you _do_ need somewhere to crash until the end of the summer, so you don’t have to deal with your parents, I have an apartment four miles away from campus. It has a couch. You could chill on it for a month or so. You don’t have to pay me rent or anything, so don’t ask.”

Chara considers this, and blinks at you.

“Why are you being so nice to me? You don't even like me that much. I just can't _understand._ ”

They look so discomfited at the idea of someone being kind to them that you wish they could understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *CO stands for constant observation. if, for whatever reason, one's treatment team doesn't think they can be left to their own devices on a locked ward, they assign a same-gender mental health worker to basically... follow them around constantly.


	3. that's the whole and that's the part of it

_**July 201X - Sans Gaster** _

On their discharge day, you, Asriel, and Bob roll up on the medical center and wait in your car for them to come out. You remember from your last time on Ward 3 that they discharge patients sometime between 11 AM and 1 PM, depending on when their ride shows up.

You look at the clock on the dashboard. 13:27. You’ve been here for almost two hours.

“Gosh, I wonder where--” Asriel begins, but Bob is quick to interrupt them, rolling down her window and yelling out out of it.

“Chara!” she shouts.

They look up sharply.

A mental health worker accompanies them down the sidewalk, carrying their belongings in two large paper bags. A nurse has a few more things in a much smaller, white paper bag. Chara gestures for them, and both women shake their heads. Asriel gets out of the front passenger seat of your car, and walks up to the trio.

“I’ll take those,” he says, his tone calm and measured. The orderly gazes at Chara as if to ask for their consent. They nod. She hands the bags over to Asriel. The nurse keeps the white bag.

You unlock the trunk from your seat. You hope Asriel gets the idea. He does, and he puts Chara’s stuff in the trunk, before shutting it. It’s not locked. You tell him to slam it down, that’s the only sure way to make sure it’s locked.

Yeah, okay, so you drive a barely breathing piece of shit from 199X, that gets approximately twenty-eight feet to the gallon. Gaster keeps offering to buy you a new car, to demonstrate his trust in you. His trust that you’ll never drive under the influence of alcohol or any non-prescribed drugs, ever again. You think your father’s faith in you might be slightly misplaced.

You know he’s got the funds for it - MEU pays its tenured professors well - but you’ve put him through enough shit in your life. He’s already paying a third of the rent on your place. Besides, your car works for its intended purpose, which is basically getting you from your apartment to campus.

Or in this case, getting one of your friends from the CORE back to your apartment. The nurse continues to hold onto that small, white bag. She walks up to the car, to Asriel’s window, and politely inquires as to which one of you is the person that Chara’s going to be living with for the next month and a half, since they got discharged too late to take Summer II classes, and therefore do not warrant student housing. Except she uses Chara’s deadname.

Their eye twitches.

You give a lazy half-wave to the nurse. But your eternal smile evaporates.

“That’ll be me. They’re staying with me until Fall 201X starts. I’ll keep an eye on them,” you say, seriously.

The nurse nods, satisfied. She asks Chara’s permission before she elaborates on their condition to you, deadnaming them once more. Chara nods again, but their mouth becomes one thoroughly annoyed line. You think they’ve been struck somewhat nonverbal, from both being outside the medical center for the first time in like ten weeks, and from the audacity of this nurse.

“She’s due to start a partial hospitalization program tomorrow. 9 AM to 3 PM. Will you be able to get her there?”

Chara protests that they can take the bus, but you can see how even the small amount of physical activity they’ve done today has exhausted them. You nod.

“I don’t have anything better to do,” you say.

You’re going to have to set like five alarms if you want to wake up before your usual time when you’re not in Gaster’s lab: 1:30 PM.

That’s when the nurse hands over the bag containing their medications.

“All the instructions for how these should be administered are on the bottles themselves, and on _____’s discharge papers,” she says. “She and her treatment team agreed that perhaps someone else should be giving her medication for a while, just in case.”

You already knew about this. Chara’s treatment team made you come to a meeting, just so they could make sure that you were responsible enough to handle everything that watching them would intend.

You can’t help but notice how annoyed Chara’s becoming, each time the nurse refers to them by “she” or “her”. So you figure you should limit your time with this idiot of a woman, before Chara starts cursing someone out and gets themself rehospitalized for being a danger to others.

“Yeah, uh, I can definitely give them their meds for as long as needed,” you promise. “I’m on medication myself. It shouldn’t be a problem.”

You glance at Chara. They look like they want to strangle someone.

“Anyways,” you continue. “I should probably get them home. Thanks for all your help.”

The nurse misses the sarcasm and contempt in your tone - how fucking hard is it to address people by the pronouns they prefer? - and gives you a smile.

“It’s no problem at all,” she says. “Have a good afternoon.”

You don’t say “you too,” before you slide your window shut. You properly start the car, shift it into gear, and start trying to put as much distance between yourself and the CORE as humanly possible.

“If I didn’t know that punching her would have gotten me extra days, I would have totally punched her,” Chara remarks. “I’m not a she, or a her, or anything in that general zip code. And that name she keeps using, it’s not my fucking name. It’s bad enough that they had me on the women’s side, but I mean, look at this fucking bracelet I have on.”

They raise it for all of you to see. It’s got their dead name - first and last - on it, their age: 20, the sex they were assigned at birth, and their admission date.

You sigh.

“Don’t worry, freshman, you’re with us,” you say. “We’re not gonna fuck up your shit. And I’ve been to partial. They’re a lot better with this kind of thing.”

Asriel still seems mad on Chara’s behalf.

“I’m sorry you had to go through such disrespect. If you brought the staff up to speed with your pronouns, and your real name, they should have done their best to remember them,” he says.

“Yeah, seriously,” Bob agrees. “If we can remember what you’re supposed to be called, there’s no excuse for anyone else to screw it up, especially if they have training. You don’t deserve that bullshit.”

“Hey, Sans?” Chara asks, from their spot next to Bob in the back seat.

“You rang?” you reply.

“Got a cigarette? I haven’t had one since before…” They trail off. “Well, you get the idea.”

You stop the car, pull into the nearest parking spot, and hand them five.

“That should keep you occupied for a few minutes,” you tell them with a grin.

It's no secret that Chara can smoke a pack in an hour if they're stressed out.

Chara kicks the back of your seat, but thanks you, nevertheless.

Then, you get to your place. You invite Asriel and Bob to stay for the night, but they both have other obligations to attend to. Bob kisses Chara on the forehead before she leaves, and as for Asriel...

He embraces them tightly, lifting them off the ground in the process. He rocks them back and forth, and repeatedly tells them how wonderful it is to have them back, and how much he’s missed them.

When he leaves, Chara sits on a chair in your kitchen, and cries themself almost catatonic. You offer to make them a cup of tea. Golden flower tea. You’d swiped a few bags from Asriel when it became clear to both of you that Chara would be staying with you.

Chara waits patiently until the tea is done, sniffs at the cup, and starts to cry harder once they take a sip.

“Asriel,” they murmur, weakly. They cry some more. “I’ve fucked up his head, Sans. I’ve fucked it all up. Why did I do this?”

“When you’re trying to self-destruct, you sorta forget about other people. You don’t think about how you’ll affect them. All you do is think about your pain, and how much you want to escape from it,” you tell them. “Nobody wants to be in pain. And people who are in pain sometimes do things to get out of it that they later regret. I have, most definitely.”

Chara nods. You hand them a napkin so they can wipe their eyes.

“At least you didn’t eat poison and make your best friend carry you to the medical center while you were dying,” they say.

“Nope. Haven’t done that, I gotta say,” you tell them. “I just did a series of self-destructive stuff. Alcohol and other shit. For years. Worried the shit out of Papyrus and my old man. I figured as long as I kept my GPA high, it was okay. It wasn’t.”

“I see,” they say.

At any rate, your reasons for putting Chara up in your apartment are not entirely selfless. You have to admit that to yourself. You’re hoping that having them around will force you out of the remaining vestiges of your melancholy. Certainly, they’ll prevent you from drinking too much, since you’re pretty sure they’re not supposed to drink at all on their medications.

It wouldn’t be fair for you to get YOLO wasted in your room, then walk into the living room reeking of booze fumes, sit down on the bed you’ve made for them on the couch, and expect them to maintain sobriety while you smell like happy hour at the bar eight blocks away from Grillby’s. The one that doesn’t know that you’re an alcoholic.

As far as the other substances go, how are you going to keep an eye on them if you’re blasted out of your goddamn mind on CNS depressants?

And you have to look out for Chara. The age of majority may be eighteen, but they’re just a kid. Oh, they’re twenty, but still.

You’re nearly thirty, so everyone below twenty-seven is just a kid to you.

While Asriel is good - better than you in terms of setting Chara at ease - he’s also... still trying to process and get over what happened in May. And he’s also a kid. A kid who needs more help than he’s willing to take. You’re clearly going to have to lecture him harder than you anticipated if you want to make sure he actually attends his therapy sessions. He’s just too damn devoted to Chara and their welfare.

You have a half mind to tell Chara that Asriel’s avoiding therapy because he wants to be there for them 24/7.

Chara would set him straight, and maybe he’d actually listen to them.

(Meanwhile, they have to go to partial hospitalization for a few weeks, and then see a therapist and psychiatrist once they get out of there. It’s mandatory, if they want to go back to school in the Fall, that is.)

You wish someone had similarly forced Asriel into therapy. But they haven’t. It’s on him to do what he’s supposed to do, and hasn’t been doing. You’ll tell him exactly what you think, once you’re done dropping Chara off at partial tomorrow.

And besides, you’re alright with watching Chara while Asriel figures his shit out. There’s a lot of shit to figure out at the moment.

Chara understands severe depression more than any of your other friends, except for maybe Alphys. Perhaps you two can help each other out in this respect. You want so much to take your friends, the ones who aren’t quite right in the head, and just… force their sadness and their trauma and their self-loathing to retreat.

But you can’t. You can’t even do that with yourself.

“Sans?” Chara asks, perceptive as ever. “You look stressed out. Are you sure I’m not imposing on you? ‘Cause I have other friends. I could find somewhere else to go.”

This kid. Outwardly one of the most hateful people you know. Peel back that layer, and you find someone in a great deal of distress. Someone selfless, in certain ways. The way they explain it to you, they thought they were setting everyone free by attempting suicide. No one would ever have to worry about them again.

They tell you how terrible they feel for getting you or Asriel involved in anything.

“I think he would have felt worse if he hadn’t been able to help you,” you say to them. “You know how you can help him best, though?”

Chara throws up their hands as if to say, “Nope.”

“Get better. For real. Keep making progress. Tell him to keep going to therapy. That’s what you can do.”

Chara nods, weakly.

“Thank you,” they say. And then, more quietly, they continue, “And thank you for finding the note. Thank you for finding the poison. I don’t think I’ve properly thanked you for that.”


	4. twenty ways to know

_**July 201X - Sans Gaster** _

Although you’ve never been known for your ability to give a shit when it matters, you notice when a steak knife goes missing from the drawer in your kitchen. Mostly because you were expecting it to happen, sooner or later. You still have Chara’s switchblade. They’re inclined toward self-injury when they’re not plotting their own death. Something like this was going to take place eventually.

You also notice that a box of bandages has similarly disappeared, along with a bottle of Betadine.

You feel like you should talk to Chara about this. Tell them that there are better outlets for their impulses. You think of undergraduate you, and how you were positively filled with Determination to not listen to anyone who tried to help you with your mental illness. Hell, even in grad school you were similarly tight-lipped, and by then, Alphys was an undergraduate, and she understood your predicament better than anyone.

You pretend to sleep in your room, for an hour or two, and then tiptoe back into your living room. There’s Chara on the couch, with the lamp on, trying to disinfect several bloody lines that they’ve made on their forearms. A cursory glance tells you that the cuts aren’t particularly deep. Still, though.

“Chara,” you murmur.

They nearly jump out of their skin.

They tug the sleeves on their sweater back down. Who the fuck wears a knit sweater in July besides someone with something to hide?

“Chara, don’t bullshit a bullshitter,” you say, a little more loudly.

“Sans, if I asked you to fuck off, would you even listen?” they ask.

“I’m not really known for listening to any instructions people give me,” you say. “You included.”

You sit down next to them on the couch.

“You could try talking about it,” you suggest.

Chara glares at you.

“I’m an awful, contemptible person. I don’t deserve the second chance I’ve been given. I’m not sure I even deserved the first one. My foster mother would tell me to pray it out if she were here, but if there’s a god, all I want to do is scream at him for what he’s let happen to me,” they say. Their voice gets thicker and more vehement. “Because a hell of a lot has happened to me, and nobody intervened! Not even once! God is an omnipotent voyeur who just watched everything take place!”

Holy shit, this child. You want to just take away all their suffering, past and present. They’re too young to be so damaged. They’re too young to be so jaded. They’re too young to be so hopeless. You want to hold them until they feel better. But that’s not how it works. You read up on PTSD in the days before Chara got discharged. You can’t fix them. That’s what rankles you the most.

This is not a reaction you’re running in lab where you have to record the appropriate data and then plot it in Excel. This is not a question on an exam, with a correct answer, and a little partial credit for those who showed their work but didn’t quite get it.

This is real life, and nothing is cut and dry.

“If all that were true, it’s not like cutting is going to make you less awful or contemptible, or more deserving of chances,” you point out. “And it’s not going to help you shout at any higher power who might be listening. You wanna spit in God’s face? Then, thrive. Thrive in spite of the hand you’ve been dealt.

Chara nods, but not with any real conviction. They gesture at your steak knife, still in their hand.

“This here, well, it’s a distraction from my thoughts, at least.”

“Focusing on physical pain so you can drown out all the other pain,” you say, thinking of your undergraduate self.

You almost wish you could make the prototype time machine functional, and take you and Chara back to 200X, so they and undergrad you could talk for a while. Maybe they’d both feel less alone. Maybe they’d work out solutions to their melancholy, together.

“Exactly,” they reply.

You roll up the sleeves on your eternal jacket, so Chara can see your arms in all their glory. Light scars against your dark skin. Sometimes criss-crossing and overlaying each other, since you’d been doing this since you were sixteen, and sometime around twenty-four you sorta ran out of skin on your arms and thighs.

“It doesn’t help you in the long run,” you say, turning last night’s words back on them. “It doesn’t even help you in the short term, not for long, at any rate. Have you talked to your therapist about your feelings and urges?”

You get the distinct impression that they haven’t. Chara is slow to warm up to people. It took them half a year to realize that Asriel was genuinely trying to befriend them, and not trying to get them to “put out” or whatever it was they’d assumed. You don’t know why they assumed that, and you really _don’t want_ to know.

So for all intents and purposes, since you promised to offer them houseroom until September, you are their interim therapist.

“I do, and she keeps asking me if I’m actively suicidal every session,” Chara explains. “But I’m not. Not anymore. I just hate myself. And the psychiatrist, he says I need to give my medications time to work.”

If you remember what antidepressant they’re on correctly, they’ve got a bit of a wait ahead of them.

“Six to eight weeks to fully cross the blood-brain barrier. Assuming you’re on the right medication,” you tell them. “Sometimes the first drug they try doesn’t work, so they gotta try different drugs. Everyone’s brain chemistry is different.”

You shouldn’t have gone into physical chem, you reflect. You should have done neurobio, or neurochem. Something like that. Gotten in with one of those pharmaceutical companies. Gaster would have definitely written you a recommendation, if he wasn’t so scared that letting you out of his sight would be like signing your death certificate.

(You haven’t given your old that many reasons to trust you, during all your years of higher education. Not until recently, at least. No wonder he wants to keep you here at MEU, even if you take thirty more years to finish your doctoral thesis. Dr. Gaster, you think. You’ll be the second one, by the end of next year if all goes well. You still can’t believe it.)

Chara yawns, but doesn’t break eye-contact with you for more than a half second.

“Is that what happened to you, Sans?”

“Yep. My case, it took uh… more than ten years, but that was also because I drank on my meds,” you say. “That’s another thing. Binge drinking makes your medication less effective.”

“So you’re telling me to stop cutting, and to stay sober, and to just sit here and _wait_ for my meds to magically make me feel better.”

“I’m telling you that neither cutting nor drinking is going to improve your condition, and I know you know that deep down. You’re not stupid.” You decide they could use an ego boost, especially since what you’re about to say is true. “You’re one of the smartest undergraduates I know, Chara. And seriously? I’ve been on this merry-go-round since you were in grade school. I’m thirty now, or about to be, anyway. And I’ve been on and off different psych meds since I was sixteen.”

Chara says something derisive that you don’t quite catch. You hover your hand over their shoulder, in case physical contact is unwelcome, or undesired. When they don’t recoil, you put your hand on their shoulder. You give them a moment to shrug it off. They don’t.

They lean closer to you, tears running down their face.

“It’s not going to work. It’s all a crock of shit,” they say.

“Give the drugs four more weeks, Chara,” you say. “Give it ‘till the start of Fall 201X. If you still feel as awful as you do now, feel free to tell me to fuck off.”

Chara gives you a shadow of a smile.

“I have to wait a whole month to tell you to fuck off? What else am I supposed to do with my free time?”

You chuckle for a moment.

“You know what I mean.”


	5. a golden age i know

_**July 201X - Sans Gaster** _

You’re glad when Asriel comes over, as late as it is, as much as you’re going to have to explain to your old man why he’s late for lab in the morning. Because Chara comes right out of their shell, like a flower blooming, the moment they see him. They smile, gently and easily. They even laugh, actually laugh, every so often.

They lean against him, conducting a conversation you can’t quite hear. But they’re both grinning.

“I’ve missed you so much, Chara,” Asriel says loudly enough for you to hear.

“I’m here, Az. I’m not going any place,” they reply.

“I hope you don’t. I really do.”

“I won’t go where you can’t, Asriel. I’ll stick around. For you, if for no other reason.”

“I would hope you would,” he says. “As much as I hope you find better reasons to stay than me.”

“You’re my sense of hope, Az,” they say. “And my sense of optimism. You mean, well, quite a bit to me. You’re my best friend.”

“You mean a lot to me too!” he responds, taking hold of that locket he has.

You’ve seen Chara wear an identical one. In fact, you’ve never seen them without it. Not even on Ward 3. Not even when Asriel was carrying them to the medical center in May. They grab their locket too, subsequently bopping him on the nose with the index finger of their free hand.

“Best friends, Asriel,” they say.

“Forever, Chara,” he returns.

And you just know Chara’s taken their evening anxiety meds, since they’re not typically lent to such confessions otherwise.

There’s a TV in your living room, right in front of the couch. You used to lie there and watch daytime television when your depression rendered you too sessile to drive over to Gaster’s lab.

While Asriel gets the DVD player vaguely working - apparently he brought over a bunch of Harry Potter movies to cheer Chara up - Chara themself wraps something in their blanket, and walks over to hand it to you. They tell Asriel that they’re making tea. He doesn’t seem to notice the transparency of their lie.

You unwrap the bundle and find the knife that was missing from your kitchen drawer.

“You can wash that and put it back, Sans,” they mutter, not loudly enough for Asriel to hear. “I don’t want to scare him.”

“You’re going to have to tell him about this sometime,” you murmur back. “Specially since he’s your closest friend.”

“I will,” they promise. “Not now, though.”

Privately, you agree with Chara. Best not to spring such a revelation on him until the fall semester starts. Not now, when he’s already worried sick over their progress. Give it a few weeks. Put him back in a college lecture hall setting. Let everything get a little more normal than it is at the moment.

Asriel continues to fiddle around with the DVD player. You could probably set everything straight, but Chara’s indicated that they want to talk to you in private.

So you follow them into your kitchen. They start to brew golden flower tea in your electric teapot.

“I don’t deserve him,” is the first thing out of their mouth.

This has to be, what, the forty-third time they’ve said this since they moved in with you?

“He loves you, Chara. You’re his best friend,” you reply.

They’re probably a little more to him, if either of them were willing to admit it.

“He deserves someone better. Someone who won’t hurt him,” Chara says.

They swipe at their eyes with their sleeve as if they might cry.

“And yet, he picked you. Friendship isn’t deserved. It just is. Asriel’s here, and he’s going to be here for you. Shouldn’t that be enough?”

Chara sighs.

You know they want to start in about how they wished they hadn’t scarred him for life, but they already know what you’d say. That the past is in the past. The only thing that can change is the future. A future they’re writing now, second by second.

“Chara?” Asriel calls. “The movie’s on.”

“Coming!” they shout back.

“Knock ‘em dead, kiddo,” you say to them, jokingly.

They blush the color of the red pen you use to mark exams, punch you in the arm gently, and run back to watch whatever it is Asriel put in the DVD player.

Neither of them have technically dismissed you. Not like they could, considering this is your own fucking apartment. But you know when you should give people space, when you’re welcome but not exactly wanted. So you return to your room. You wait until the movie’s over, and then another hour after that.

When the two of them are unquestionably asleep, Chara practically on top of Asriel due to the lack of space on your couch, you go back into your room. You grab your comforter - who needs this shit in July, except in your living room with its overzealous air conditioning? - and drape it over the pair of them.

You’ve never seen Chara sleep soundly before. But they don’t move too much, and they don’t scream, and they don’t cry, not until six in the morning, at any rate.

And then, it’s Asriel reassuring them that they’re not in the care of their foster parents, that nobody is ever going to punch or concuss them ever again, that they’re out of the hospital, and they’re not bleeding out and dying.

Once Chara calms down, you decide not to interfere.

“I’ll protect you,” Asriel says. “I’ll help you.”

Chara wipes their eyes and nods.

“I’m sorry,” they say to him. He shakes his head.

“Please don’t apologize. You don’t have to. I’m here, and I’m not leaving.”

Half an hour later, Chara finally goes back to sleep, with one arm thrown over Asriel’s waist.

What was that saying Undyne was jokingly so fond of? No homo? Spoken when she and Alphys were acting like a couple in lab?

If Asriel and Chara were both awake, you’d say something like that to them and then mock them to kingdom come.


	6. the punch drunk and the blow

_**August 201X - Sans Gaster** _

One afternoon, you go to Grillby’s instead of picking Chara up from partial. They’ve repeatedly told you that they can get to your place on the bus, and therefore don’t need you to pick them up. And you had a fight with Gaster.

He told you that you needed to work harder if you legitimately expected to finish your Ph. D thesis before 2030.

You countered that you were keeping an eye on a friend of yours, and it was the summer, therefore he should get the hell off your back.

“I’m aware of the arrangements you’ve devised in order to prevent Chara from returning to an abusive household, and I maintain that you made the right decision,” he’d replied. “Nevertheless, how many more years are you going to make excuses? Just give me a year that you intend to be finished, so I know not to bother you until then. You are very bright, Sans, but--”

“I need to apply myself more,” you finish. You’ve been getting variations on this lecture since you were ten.

He hadn’t even been angry. He almost never got angry. He’d been disappointed, which was somehow worse.

It took you back to the days where you were _really_ fucking up on a regular basis. Undergrad and early grad school. Surprisingly enough, by this point in your life, you're actually trying to behave yourself.

So, as you left his laboratory, you decided that if he was going to get all disappointed and bent out of shape, you’d actually do something that warranted it.

You drink yourself stupid at Grillby’s. So drunk, in fact, that Grillby refuses to mix you another drink until you have a few glasses of water.

Then, sometime around 7:30, you remember that Chara doesn’t have keys to your apartment, and they must be beyond angry at you. They deserve to be beyond angry with you, for your oversight.

But you aren’t sober enough to drive home. You go through your contacts and ask yourself who would be the most likely to linger on campus over the summer.

Naturally, you text Alphys, and ask her if she can come to Grillby’s and drive you back to your apartment. She agrees, stammering all the while. Once she arrives, you hand her twenty bucks for helping you in your time of need. She tries to give it back, but you refuse, adamantly.

And when you get back to your building, you find Chara sitting on the front steps, cigarette in one hand, and bottle of vodka in the other. A mostly empty bottle of vodka.

Great. Just fucking great. You leave them alone for five hours and then, this.

“Remembered I existed, then?” they ask.

You’re too hammered to be polite.

“Chara, what in the hell do you think you’re doing? Alcohol interferes w--”

“The absorption of phytonadione, yes, I read about that. It also has synergistic effects with lorazepam,” they say, the hint of a slur in their tone. “But I earned this bottle. I deserve it.”

You shove your hands into your pockets. “And how do you figure that one?”

They look you straight in the eye, unflinching, and unmoving.

“My mother called,” they inform you.

Okay, well, that explains their attempt to drink themself into an alternate state of reality, or into unconsciousness, whichever comes first. You sigh.

But they’re not finished yet.

“My father is dead.”

You’re not sure whether their relationship with their father was good or bad, so you don’t know whether they’re doing victory shots or drinking away their sorrows. Or some combination of both. Both is possible.

You sit down next to them, on the front steps. You gesture for the bottle of vodka.

“Like hell I’m giving this to you, Sans,” they say. “You’re drunk, too.”

“You’re drunker.”

“Somehow, I doubt that,” they reply.

They take a swig straight from the bottle, and don’t say anything for a long while.

“I’m, uh,” you start out. “I’m sorry for your loss, I guess.”  

Chara stares out at nothing for a while, before turning back to you. They hand you the bottle, for what that’s worth. You chug half the remaining contents.

“I’m sorry, too. He was the nicer one, by far. He tried not to yell much, he only hit me when I really had it coming, and he never strangled me, or slammed me into the walls, or gave me a concussion, or anything like that. And he taught me how to garden,” they say. “I always had this impression that if he hadn’t ended up with my mom, he would have probably been a great person. Not like I can test that hypothesis anymore. But my mother’s having a service for him at some point. She expects me there.”

If their requirements for “good parent” involves such stringent standards as never having strangled or concussed one’s kid, you really don’t want to know much about their childhood. You’ll listen if they decide to elaborate, but you’re not going to ask those questions yourself.

“Do you legitimately want to go to the funeral?” you ask. “You don’t have to.”

Chara shrugs. “I don’t know.”

They snatch the bottle back from you and take a drink.

“Y’know, Sans, my mom wants to know where I’m staying, so she can pick me up that day, in the funeral limo,” they say, and even though they’re drunk, you don’t miss the way their hands shake, the way their eyes dart to and fro, as if already looking for an escape route.

“Well, if you wanna go, tell her you’ll get there yourself,” you say, sensibly. “I’ll drive you there.”

“You gotta be sober, Sans,” they respond. “Is that going to be a problem?”

You think for a while. You flushed most of your old stashes of pills, but you do know where the one or two remaining stashes are. They’re insurance. You’re keeping them just in case. And you still have a veritable liquor cabinet under your bed, although you haven’t needed or particularly wanted to touch it in several weeks.

Still, though, you don’t want to be responsible for getting Chara into an accident because you decided to drive while impaired.

“I’ll be more dry than a desert,” you promise them. “Just give me a day and a time.”

You think of the last time you made that promise to Papyrus. That this was the end of your drinking. You made that promise yesterday evening, and look where you are, 24 hours later.

You know Grillby would never drop a dime on you to your little brother, but Dogamy and Dogaressa? They’re both graduate students who have seen you at your worst, and they were in Grillby’s tonight, celebrating their engagement by eating greasy food and having cheap drinks.

They might say something to Papyrus, if only because they’re worried about your safety, and they know that the one person you can’t refuse is your brother. You’d walk over hot coals for him.

“We need to stop drinking, Chara,” you say, honestly, seriously.

Chara rolls their eyes.

“ _You_ can stop drinking, and that just means more for me.”

They tell you about how they first picked up the bottle: drinking, and being plastered almost constantly, was their way out before they got into MEU with a full scholarship. Physical abuse doesn’t hurt nearly as much when you’re hammered. Oh, sure, it hurts like a bitch in the morning, because then you’re bruised, occasionally bloody, and exceedingly hungover. But if you stay plastered as often as you can, then it doesn’t hurt much at all.

You stare at them, and you almost want to weep for them. They’re _twenty_. What the fuck is wrong with people? You thought Chara was odd for eating rat poison, but the more you hear about their life, the less strange it seems.

As it turns out, they’re a little like you. They could drink themself stupid more often than not back in high school and still come out with straight A’s. And they got some insanely high score on the SAT, which they took while getting over a hangover.

No wonder Mount Ebott University gave them a full scholarship. They tell you their SAT score, twenty points higher than yours. You’ve seen them operate, both in class, and in the lab. So you’ve concluded that this kid is a fucking genius, someone who could probably give your old man a run for his money in fifteen or so years.

You watch tears well up in their eyes, and wish they were less touch-averse. You’d like to give them a hug. You want them to know that they’re not alone, that if there are things they’re afraid to tell Asriel because they don’t want to scare him, that you’re willing to listen. You’re always willing to listen.

You never went through any sort of abuse from Gaster, who has only ever wanted the best for you, but… you understand turmoil. You understand pain. You understand being in enough pain that your only recourse is to drink it away, and that blacking out isn’t a problem, it’s a mercy.

“Isn’t it funny?” they remark, at the tail end of their crying spell. “I’ve traumatized everyone who really cares about me. Asriel, you, and Bobbi. And I might have killed my father. He had a stroke while I was in the hospital. All ‘cause of that stunt in May.” They gaze at you. “I don’t deserve friends like these, Sans. I don’t deserve anyone.”

You nod, but not in agreement.

“Let them be the judge of that, Chara. If your friends still didn’t want to stick around after May, they would have left. But they didn’t. Fuck, our entire lab must have marched through Ward 3 to see you, at least once a week. And your father? Stop looking for reasons to hate yourself.”

“My friends are delusional.”

“They see the same potential I do, kiddo,” you insist. “They see who you are, and who you could be, and - tonight’s binge aside - you _are_ trying to get better. You’re going to backslide sometimes, because recovery isn’t a straight line, but that doesn’t mean you give up.”

“I don’t deserve them,” Chara repeats.

“You know what you gotta do, then?” you ask. “If you really think you don’t deserve them?”

"Yes?"

“Keep trying to get better. Don’t let this lapse become a relapse. You’re allowed to fuck up,” you insist. “The only person still holding all this stuff against you is yourself. And eventually, you’re gonna have to let that go. Accept what you have. Who you have. Don’t question why they’re still there.”


	7. the best of all, i hope

**_August 201X - Sans Gaster_ **

“Hey, kiddo,” you say to Chara. They look up from their handout on emotion regulation, which you’re sure is going to end up wadded up on your floor. “How’s about, after I pick you up from partial tomorrow, we drop by Hotland Quad?”

“Why would I do that?” they ask.

“Well, a lot of Gaster’s research team went home from the summer. The only undergrads we had to start with were you and Asriel. Now, we only have Asriel, and he’s highly intelligent, but he can’t do everything a team of three undergrads should be doing on his own.”

“So you want me to come back and do the drudge work, so you don’t have to waste time at the centrifuge, spinning down samples.”

You raise your hands, with a snort.

“You got me there, Chara,” you say, grinning. “Also, I’m under the distinct impression that you’re getting kind of bored, just going to your program and then coming back here every day. Maybe you’d convalesce faster if you had something interesting to do with your time.”

“I do miss the lab,” Chara admits. “But do you really think Dr. Gaster would have me back after everything I’ve done? Think he’d let me around potentially lethal chemicals?”

You nod.

“When I asked him about it, he was all like, ‘How soon can they return?’ Then he gave me a lecture about making sure you don’t overexert yourself. As for the lethal chemicals part, you won’t be able to access the stockroom yet, not unless someone else is with you.”

Chara gives you a smile. Not one of their 50 megaton creepy smiles, but a genuine one that reaches their eyes. You hadn’t noticed until now that they have dimples.

“When am I allowed to come back?” they ask.

“Tomorrow. If you don’t mind working on a Friday, that is.” You dangle a set of keys in front of them. You throw the keys, and they catch them one-handedly.

“What’re these?” they ask.

“Well, you’re not dying anymore, so I figured you’d want your keys to the lab back. And your keys to your Chemistry department locker.”

Then, you show them another key.

“That’s my spare key to your locker,” you say

Chara nods. “I guess someone has to make sure I don’t leave any worrying notes in there again.”

“Exactly.” You plop down on the couch lazily. “What do you say we invite Asriel over, to celebrate your return to research?”

Chara smiles again.

“Definitely.”


	8. that's the long and that's the short of it

_**August 201X - Chara _____** _

You’re back at Sans’s apartment, AKA the place where self-sustaining tornados of trash manage to flourish.

You get on your laptop. For serious school matters.

Since not even you can complete the coursework for six incompletes in the allotted time, you elect to take Withdrawal grades for all your Spring 201X classes.

You have to take them all over again, now.

When you log into the account that allows you to select classes, aside from being happy that none of your required classes are full, you notice that your advisor has been changed. Your new advisor is a woman named Toriel Dreemurr. Three guesses as to who her son is, and you’d guess the same answer all three times.

As far as you know, Toriel only ends up advisor to the head cases, the students who need both an advisor and a therapist. Sans says that he was her advisor while he was an undergraduate. That doesn’t make you feel much better, considering the fact that Sans is almost as mentally fucked as you are.

“She was Alphys’s advisor too,” Sans offers. Alphys is also not the most sane person on earth, either. “And, she’s not bad on the eyes by any means.”

You wrinkle your nose.

“I’d rather not imagine myself with my best friend’s mother,” you reply, drily.

“Nah, you’re too busy imagining yourself with aforementioned best friend,” Sans says, half-jokingly.

You blush even redder than usual, and chuck a pillow at him.


	9. that's the doubt, the doubt, the trust in it

_**Late-August 201X - Sans Gaster** _

Today is the day of Chara’s hearing. The one that determines whether or not they’ll be allowed to come back to college for Fall 201X. Chara calls it the Day of Destiny.

The hearing starts at 9 AM, but knowing the bureaucracy of your school, it’s not gonna start until 10:30. Currently, it’s 7:30, and Chara’s ready to go. Dressed business casual, and got their recommendation letters from their therapist and psychiatrist, and everything.

“If you want me to come with you, I can,” you offer. “Today’s not a lab day for me, so honestly, I’m just gonna get a 6 pack of the cheapest beer at the convenience store, sit on my ass, and watch shitty television otherwise.”

“You go ahead and watch your shitty television, Sans. I already have enough people going to this hearing to extol my virtues or whatever. Even Doctor Gaster.”

“Your nonexistent virtues,” you say with a snort.

“Just for that, I’m not bringing any cigarettes back for you,” Chara says, but you can tell that they’re anxious. They’re all fidgety.

“Seriously, Chara? Worst case scenario is they don’t let you return until the spring,” you remind them. “And then you can live on my couch and clean my apartment ‘till then.

Actually, worst case scenario is that they get expelled outright, but you don’t think you should mention that.

They wait for Asriel’s car to pull up, and when it does, they bid you goodbye. They ask you to wish them luck, and you do.

“Try not to drink yourself unconscious, Sans,”

“Yes, boss.”

Yeah, right. Only time a 6 pack of beer knocks you out is if you already have something else in your system. And you might as well be awake when they come back, in case it doesn’t go well, for whatever reason.

So you drive down to the convenience store by Grillby’s, acquire your shitty beer, get home, turn on a Divorce Court marathon, and start watching.

Chara finally comes back five hours later, a packet of papers in their hand, and a faintly satisfied smile on their face.

“I take it that you haven’t been expelled,” you say.

You hand them your last beer.

“No, Sans. However, I have to follow a great deal of rules in order to maintain my standing as a student come fall. I have to continue with my treatment and therapy. I have to see my advisor at least twice a month. I am not allowed to carry more than nineteen credits. I have to pass a drug test.” They look over the papers. “I am not allowed to have a single, unless someone who lives in my building of Waterfall Quad is willing to check up on me at least four times a week. I am still not allowed to administer my own medication.”

Here, they scowl.

“So then just ask Bob to check on you whenever she has the chance,” you say to them. “It’s not like she’d even mind.”

“That’s why they agreed to let me have a single again, Sans. Bobbi said she’d be glad to do it, and to give me my meds.”

“I wonder why you have to take a drug test, though,” you muse. “Not like you’re a junkie or anything.”

“Most likely because I drink like a fish.”

“If I’m recalling this properly,” you start out, “urine tests for alcohol only detect it for up to twelve hours after your last drink. Don’t quote me on that, though.”

“I take it that you’re speaking from experience?” Chara asks.

You grin.

“Yeah, freshman, that’s one word for it," you say, grinning. "I'll be your lab TA for Orgo II in a few weeks. And It'll be good to have you back around campus. Everyone's missed you."

Chara raises an eyebrow.

"You really think so?"

"Unfortunately."


End file.
